News
Freshfields advises Funding Circle on its plans to float
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (‘Freshfields’) is advising Funding Circle Holdings Limited (‘Funding Circle’), a leading global loans platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (‘SMEs’) with operations in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands, on its plans to proceed with an initial public offering (‘IPO’).
Funding Circle launched in 2010, enabling SMEs to borrow money directly from investors through its highly efficient and effective loans platform. The platform, which combines cutting-edge technology, proprietary credit models and sophisticated data analytics, provides SME borrowers with fast and flexible financing at competitive prices through a simple online application, and investors with attractive risk-adjusted returns.
Since launching, Funding Circle has facilitated more than £5bn in loans to over 50,000 SMEs from 80,000 investors – including over £1bn in the first half of 2018.
Funding Circle has played a central role in the digitization of the loans landscape. This has opened up small business lending to a wide range of investors and has contributed to the growth of the SME lending market. In 2017 alone, loans facilitated through Funding Circle’s platform across its four markets contributed to £3.9bn of gross value added to GDP and enabled more than 75,000 jobs.
The Freshfields team was led by partners Mark Austin and Doug Smith.
ENDS
Notes for editors
A link to Funding Circle’s own announcement can be found here:
About Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world's leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on ground-breaking and business-critical mandates. Our 2,800 plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through our own offices and alongside leading local firms. Our commitment, local and multi-national expertise and business know-how means our clients rely on us when it matters most. The firm's market-leading technology practice saw it advise on more high-value technology deals in Europe as ranked by deal value in 2017 than any other firm(1).
(1) This ranking comes from Mergermarket’s Tech League Table LTM Europe 15 December 2016 – 15 December 2017.
